Addressing the recent BGL REGTECH conference in Melbourne, BGL managing director Ron Lesh said the app would change the way SMSF professionals engaged with their clients, allowing them to view and manage issues around self-managed funds in real time.
“When you go into Engage, the first thing you’ll see is trustee query, which gives you the ability to send transactions out to your client, and they can respond by providing a text or a photo or scan of the document to explain what the transaction is about,” Mr Lesh said.
“The second thing the app gives you is investments, graphs, contribution information, and it tells you where you sit with regard to your pensions.”
Mr Lesh said Engage by BGL would be a value-add for accountants in allowing their SMSF trustee accountants to be more engaged with their services on a day-to-day level, but would also require a different way of working for SMSF professionals.
“What this helps you to do is keep in touch with your clients and provide them with remarkable experiences,” he said.
“Think about how happy your trustee clients will be if every morning they can see what their balance is in their super fund, especially if the US market keeps going up.
“But the one thing with Engage is that your fund is meant to be up to date and that’s your challenge; it’s not doing your work at the end of the year but doing your work consistently during the year so when a client picks up his phone in the morning and wants to know what his super balance is, he’s looking at what his actual super balance is.”
Mr Lesh added that by keeping on top of changes to their fund on a daily or weekly basis, the app would help both trustees and advisers to be more compliant in the face of rising incidences of administrative breach penalties from the ATO.
“By having improved transparency of what’s going on and monitoring investment performance and contribution limits, it helps you to educate your clients as to where their super fund is at, which is one of the big things coming out of the ATO,” he said.
